Former expert on Russia attacked debunked conspiracy theory used to defend Trump against allegations of bribery
Republicans must stop pushing the “fictional narrative” that Ukraine
interfered in the 2016 presidential election because it plays into
Vladimir Putin’s hands, the White House’s former top expert on Russia
has told the impeachment inquiry in dramatic testimony.
British-born Fiona Hill, testifying to the House of Representatives’ intelligence committee in Washington on Thursday, attacked a debunked conspiracy theory used by Republicans to defend Donald Trump against allegations of bribery.
It was another striking moment in the public inquiry: a respected
official on the biggest possible stage accusing elected Republican
officials of boosting Russian propaganda efforts to undermine American
democracy.British-born Fiona Hill, testifying to the House of Representatives’ intelligence committee in Washington on Thursday, attacked a debunked conspiracy theory used by Republicans to defend Donald Trump against allegations of bribery.
“Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country – and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did,” said Hill, who until July was the national security council’s director for European and Russian affairs.
“This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.”
Some Republicans on the intelligence committee have pushed a discredited conspiracy theory, embraced by Trump and amplified by conservative media, that Ukraine, rather than Russia, meddled in the last election.
They contend that Ukraine was complicit in the 2016 hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and that computer records were fabricated to cast blame on Russia. A key talking point is CrowdStrike, a security firm hired by the DNC that detected the hack.
According to a rough transcript of his July phone call with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Trump said: “I would like to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike. I guess you have one of your wealthy people. The server, they say Ukraine has it.”
It was this investigation, along with one into a gas company with ties to former Democratic vice-president Joe Biden’s son Hunter, that Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, pressed for, allegedly in exchange for the release of nearly $400m in military aid – a quid pro quo.
During the impeachment hearings, Republicans have made frequent references to alleged election meddling by Ukraine, without offering evidence. On the opening day, Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the committee, said “indications of Ukrainian election meddling” had troubled Trump.
But Hill, co-author of the book Mr Putin: Operative in the Kremlin, warned in forensic and measured terms that such rumourmongering only empowers the Russian president who, as intelligence agencies and Congress concluded, systematically attacked America’s democratic institutions in 2016 and is already plotting do so again next year.
“The impact of the successful 2016 Russian campaign remains evident today,” she said, wearing black and speaking in an accent from north-east England. “Our nation is being torn apart. Truth is questioned. Our highly professional and expert career foreign service is being undermined. US support for Ukraine – which continues to face armed Russian aggression – has been politicised.”
She added: “Right now, Russia’s security services and their proxies have geared up to repeat their interference in the 2020 election. We are running out of time to stop them. In the course of this investigation, I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.”
The statement echoed a public warning by the former special counsel Robert Mueller, whose investigation demonstrated concerted efforts by Russia in the 2016 election to hurt Democrat Hillary Clinton and help Trump. It also came one day after Putin himself told an event in Moscow: “Thank God, no one is accusing us of interfering in the US elections any more. Now they’re accusing Ukraine.”
When the text of Hill’s opening statement was released, it was rebuked by Nunes, who circulated a copy of a 2018 congressional report on Russian meddling. But he acknowledged that Democrats had dissented from the report’s findings. Democrat Adam Schiff, the committee chairman, welcomed Hill’s intervention and said he shared her concerns.
Daniel Goldman, the Democratic counsel, asked if Trump had ignored the advice of his experts on the Ukraine conspiracy theory and instead taken the word of Giuliani. Hill replied: “That appears to be the case, yes.”
Giuliani was put front and centre of the Ukraine scandal on Wednesday by Gordon Sondland, US ambassador to the EU. That remained the case on Thursday. Hill reiterated earlier evidence, given behind closed doors, that John Bolton, then national security adviser, had described Giuliani as “a hand grenade that was going to blow everybody up”.
She pointed to Giuliani’s “incendiary” and “explosive” remarks in various TV interviews and suggested that Bolton’s warnings had now come to pass.
Hill also repeated her claim that Bolton had said he did not want to be part of “a drug deal” that Sondland and the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, were cooking up with regard to Ukraine. She was asked what he meant by “drug deal”. She said: “I took it to mean investigations for a meeting.”
Asked if she then spoke to lawyers, Hill said: “I certainly did.”
Hill was the third immigrant to testify at the impeachment hearings. In her opening statement, she described her childhood in Britain and how she was inspired by American values.
“I am an American by choice, having become a citizen in 2002,” she said. “I was born in the north-east of England, in the same region George Washington’s ancestors came from. Both the region and my family have deep ties to the United States.”
Her father, a coalminer, wanted to emigrate to the US but his dream was thwarted. “Years later, I can say with confidence that this country has offered for me opportunities I never would have had in England. I grew up poor with a very distinctive working-class accent. In England in the 1980s and 1990s, this would have impeded my professional advancement.”
The committee also heard from David Holmes, a staffer from the US embassy in Ukraine, who again expressed concerns about the role played by Giuliani.
As Holmes testified that he overheard Sondland speak by phone to Trump about an investigation and assure him Zelenskiy would do anything he asked, Trump tweeted: “I have been watching people making phone calls my entire life. My hearing is, and has been, great. Never have I been watching a person making a call, which was not on speakerphone, and been able to hear or understand a conversation. I’ve even tried, but to no avail. Try it live!”
Thursday’s hearing marks the last scheduled day of hearings by the intelligence committee focused on whether Trump pressured Zelenskiy to investigate Biden, his potential challenger in next year’s election. Should Trump be impeached by the Democratic-controlled House, he will go on trial in the Republican-controlled Senate, with acquittal seeming the most likely outcome.
The impeachment inquiry will hear from two further key witnesses on Thursday, who are expected to add to the growing evidence that the Trump administration pressured Ukraine for political gains.
No comments:
Post a Comment